1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a personal information management apparatus and a customizing apparatus that manage users"" personal information and customize resources according to the personal information, and more particularly to a personal information management apparatus and a customizing apparatus that manage personal information of each client user in a distributed network system having one or more severs and one or more clients and customize resources according to the personal information.
To be more specific, the present invention relates to a personal information management apparatus and a customizing apparatus that enable the servers to transfer resources customized according to users"" personal information in response to a resource service request from a client user. The present invention relates to, for example, a personal information management apparatus and a customizing apparatus for a browser of WWW clients to display pages customized according to user""s personal information in WWW resource spaces having WWW (World Wide Web) servers and WWW clients.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, there has been a remarkable development in the field of information processing and information communications. In the technical field of this type, a study and development for interconnecting computer systems has been heretofore made actively. A major object of interconnecting systems is to share and distribute computer resources and information among plural users.
Transmission media or networks for interconnecting systems include LAN (Local Area Network) built within a limited space such as the premises of a college or office; WAN (Wide Area Network) for connecting LANs over a leased line; public switched telephone network (PSTN); ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network); and Internet having communications networks expanded on a global scale.
A network system is generally built as a client-server model in which specific computers on a network are designated servers (file server, print server, etc.) and other clients share servers"" resources. In such a client-server model, execution of a part of a procedure to constitute clients"" programs is committed to another computer on the network in the format of remote procedure call (RPC) or remote method invocation (RMI). The result of executing the remote procedure is returned to the calling computer as a return value. Input can be made to the program by using a keyboard and files of a computer in hand, and output can be made to a display and files of the same computer.
The mechanism of the remote procedure call or remote method invocation, without being limited to the LAN world, is also usable in global networks such as Internet.
For example, a global information retrieval system, called WWW (World Wide Web), for providing resource spaces of hyperlink structure, is publicized and counted as one of the reasons for explosive widespread use of Internet. Message exchange for resource access and the like is performed between WWW servers and WWW clients on the WWW resource spaces in the format of remote procedure call or remote method invocation according to various protocols such as HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) and the following protocols: HTTPS, S-HTTP (Secure HTTP), FTP (File Transfer Protocol), CORBA (Common ORB Architecture), IIOP (Internet Inter-ORB Protocol), JavaRMI (Remote Method Invocation). CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is known as a method for executing procedures on WWW servers. The HTTP protocol is described in, e.g., RFC (Request For Comments) 1945 and RFC2068.
A WWW server provides resource objects possessed by it to WWW clients wherein the resource objects are located by an identifier called URL (Uniform Resource Locator). URL refers to a character string specifying a resource name and is described in the format of xe2x80x9cscheme name (protocol name)://host name (domain name): port number/path name (file name)xe2x80x9d. URL is described in, e.g., RFC1738 and RFC1808.
The type of resources especially frequently used on WWW is documents written in the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) language, that is, hypertext. HTML is described in, e.g., RFC1866 (already known).
On the other hand, WWW clients are computer systems that operate using an application called a WWW browser for browsing WWW resources, that is, documents written primarily in the HTML format.
The WWW browser, an application for reproducing homepage on screens, according to URL (or URL embedded in an anchor on a homepage) entered in a location box on a WWW browser window screen, searches WWW resource spaces of hyperlink structure on networks, finds out a resource object or a HTML file from a relevant HTTP service, and downloads data from a WWW server. The WWW browser analyzes the downloaded HTML file and displays it on a browser window screen as a homepage.
Normal WWW browsers, according to a HTML file obtained from a WWW server, faithfully reproduce a homepage on a browser window screen and present it to a client user. However, some users may desire to customize the homepage according to the users"" own personal information.
There is disclosed in Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 10-260821 an automatic creation system that customizes the start page of a WWW browser according to users"" personal information. In this automatic creation system, by in advance registering users, personal information in the servers to provide pages, the servers can automatically create pages customized according to the user""s personal information and provide the pages to the users.
However, the servers may commit a part of service requested from a client to other servers. One of the methods by which servers request service supply from other servers is CGI (Common Gateway Interface). According to the method described in the Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. Hei 10-260821, in the case where resources possessed by plural servers must be used to create a certain page, all servers concerned in supplying the page must possess a user""s personal information. Such distribution of the user""s personal information to plural servers is problematic in terms of security.
Recently, there are increasing cases in which the presentation of users"" personal information and replies to questionnaires are requested on homepages. For example, many prize pages are provided with a blank form for inputting applicants, personal information as a precondition for accepting application.
xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN(trademark) (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d offered by Duo System, Ltd. is a service system that substitutes for users to input users"" personal information (See the URL www2.duo.co.jp). This service requests a user to in advance register users"" personal information in the server of xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d. The server of xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d provides a list of prize pages and presents them to the user. The user selects a favorite prize page from the list provided by xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d. xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d, in response to the selection operation, requests a server possessing the relevant page to provide resources. When transferring the obtained page to the user, xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d inserts the registered personal information in a mandatory personal information entry field on the page. Therefore, as for the personal information registered in the sever of xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d, the user can be saved the trouble of filling in a blank form provided in the prize pages.
However, xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler) xe2x80x9d is concerned in only filling in a blank form provided in prize pages or the like and is beyond the scope of application of users"" personal information to other uses and purposes. In other words, xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d excludes customizing pages based on users"" personal information from the scope of processing. Also, xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d is concerned in only inputting personal information to a blank form and the prize pages themselves are provided from other external servers. Regardless of the purpose of customizing the pages in the interest of users, other servers cannot use personal information stored in xe2x80x9cANAUMEKUN (blank-filler)xe2x80x9d.
A method well-known to those skilled in the art is that users"" personal information is held by a WWW browser and sent to a WWW server to customize pages. This method has the following mechanism. Information held by the WWW browser is called xe2x80x9cCookiexe2x80x9d. The WWW server to provide customized service generates character string information for identifying a user, that is, Cookie, and transfers it to the browser. The WWW server and the browser save Cookie in files on the respective computer systems. When the user accesses the customized service again, the browser transfers Cookie on the user""s computer to the WWW server to have it recognize the user.
However, such a Cookie-based method has a drawback that, when one user uses plural browsers (for example, when plural PCs are used for different purposes), unless identical personal information is written to each of the browsers, identical pages on a WWW server will not be customized in the same way. Namely, Cookie having identical contents, that is, personal information, must be stored in all the browsers used by the user. Also, when changing the personal information, modifications must be made for all the browsers.
The Cookie-based method requires that Cookie character string information be exchanged each time between a browser and a WWW server, with the result that an increase in the types and amount of personal information would increase the load on data transfer.
The present invention provides an excellent personal information management apparatus and customizing apparatus that can suitably manage users"" personal information and customize processing according to the personal information.
The present invention also provides an excellent personal information management apparatus and customizing apparatus that, in a distributed network system having one or more servers and one or more clients, can suitably manage personal information of each client user and customize resource supply services according to the personal information.
The present invention further provides an excellent personal information management apparatus and customizing apparatus that enable servers to a customize and transfer resources according to users"" personal information in response to a resource service request from a client user.
The present invention further provides an excellent personal information management apparatus and a customizing apparatus that enable a browser of WWW clients to display pages customized according to users"" personal information in a WWW resource space having WWW (World Wide Web) servers and WWW clients.
The present invention is applied to manage client users"" personal information in a network of open environment such as Internet. The network connects myriad clients and servers by TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) and can transfer messages according to, e.g., the HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) protocol.
According to the present invention, personal information of individual users is stored in a personal information management apparatus connected to a network. Specifically, since users"" personal information is managed only in the personal information management apparatus, users are saved the trouble of registering and modifying the personal information as often as the number of browsers they use.
Servers to provide resources are dispersed on a network. An example of resources is hypertext written in the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) format, which contains references of a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) character string format describing link relations to other resources.
A reference to a resource customized according to user""s personal information, that is, a URL character string (referred to as xe2x80x9cURL1xe2x80x9d) is described in the format that includes the address of a server to provide the resource, a procedure for executing customizing, and variables to be converted to personal information required for the customizing.
A server to provide the resource customized according to users"" personal information provides a URL (referred to as xe2x80x9cURL2xe2x80x9d) on the resource or a page wherein the URL is described in the format that includes the address of a personal information management apparatus, and a procedure for converting the variables in the character string URL1 to personal information.
When a user performs an operation to open the URL2, a request to retrieve personal information is issued to the personal information management apparatus and relevant personal information is obtained. After the variables in the URL1 character string are replaced by personal information, an operation to open the URL1, that is, a procedure for supplying a customized resource is executed. As a result, the customized resource is provided to the user.
The server itself to provide the resource customized according to users"" personal information need not handle the personal information and is therefore free from security problems.
Specifically, according to the present invention, users can newly register or modify personal information without the trouble of having each of plural servers register or modify the personal information. Resource providers not managing personal information can also provide resources customized by use of personal information.